AdaIC News Winter 1995
Ada 9X Gets Approval From International Standardization Organization
Christine M. Anderson, Ada 9X Project Manager
The final ISO balloting for Ada 9X closed on Oct. 31. The tally was 18 countries voting "yes", 0 countries voting "no", and 2 countries abstaining. This translates to ISO approval of Ada 9X.
In November, the standard was delivered to ISO for publication. Copies of the new standard will be distributed to the public in January. If you are not on the Ada 9X mailing list and would like to receive a copy, please call the AdaIC at 1-800/232-4211 or 703/681-2466.
Ada 9X Validation test suite on schedule
The Ada Compiler Validation Capability (ACVC), the test suite that measures conformance to the ISO Ada 9X standard, is now available on our host machine on the Internet. (Please call the AdaIC at 1-800/232-4211 for information on accessing the host.) This test suite, ACVC 2.0, consists of streamlined Ada 83 tests plus about 465 new Ada 9X tests.
Compiler vendors may begin the validation process in March 95 at any one of the five Ada Validation Facilities (AVFs) in the U.S., Germany, France, and the U.K.
The Ada 9X Compiler/Textbook contract is awarded (finally!)
It was a long time coming, but the Ada 9X Compiler/Textbook contract was awarded on Nov. 17 to Intermetrics, Inc. Delays associated with pre-award audits, end-of-year procurement backlogs, and government personnel downsizing contributed to the lengthy procurement. The Ada 9X Project Office wishes to apologize for any inconvenience caused by the delay.
The cost-sharing contract features an aggressive 12-month schedule, resulting in an Ada 9X textbook and compilers for the Power PC and Intel architecture for OS/2, Windows NT, and Mac OS. The textbook author is Richard Pattis, and the publisher is Prentice-Hall. The compressed schedule is possible because of the cost-sharing requirement -- which meant that bidders had already made an investment prior to contract start. The compiler and textbook will be offered to academia at a competitive cost.
Farewell
With ISO's approval of Ada 9X, this will be my last "Report to the Public". I wish to thank all of you for contributing valuable comments over the years. I believe Ada 9X is a world-class programming language. Now it's up to all of us to make its transition into widespread use a big success. I will be working with the new Ada trade association, the Ada Resource Association, and SIGAda to make that happen. I will also be watching for your "reports to the public" about exciting applications using Ada 9X.
The Saga of the Ada 9X Team
To add a literary note, here are a few verses of a poem that Bard Crawford wrote for the Ada 9X team's celebration dinner.
It covers matters both personal and engineering. I can't include the whole poem, but one of its technical comments sounds like a Gilbert and Sullivan patter song:
- And callbacks can now be coded by amateurs,
- With subprogram accesses passed as parameters.
And it closes with:
- An ISO Standard -- the first you will see --
- To support distribution and OOP.
- If that's not enough for the programming masses,
- It will call into question their inheritance classes.
- Now the team has arrived at the end of their quest.
- Ada 9X is finished, and it's simply the best.
Chris Anderson
Ada 9X Project Manager
PL/VTQ
3550 Aberdeen Avenue, S.E.
Kirtland AFB, NM 87117-5776
505/846-0817; fax: 505/846-6053
e-mail: anderson@plk.af.mil
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